Dess sighed, snapping her trigonometry book shut and dropped it lightly on her desk before moving her heavy eyes slowly over to her clock. She sighed when she saw that the glowing numbers read 11:40.

"Dammit," she muttered. There was approximately 1,190 second until midnight. Not that it mattered anyway.

The Blue Time had become an empty void for Dess. With no one to share it with, the 25th hour in the day was just an extra period of time to be filled.

"We're leaving."

"What? Flyboy, are you thinking straight?"

"Yes. You said yourself that there could be other midnighters. And you're usually right. So Melissa, Jess and I are going to go find them."

"But..."

Dess shook her head, trying to dislodge the memory from digging into her any further. But...they had just left. Left without a trace. The cops thought it was a string of teenage murders. Dess snorted at her own thoughts. They could be kicking back in LA for all she knew. She sighed again. Her eyes moved over to one of the thousands of watercolour painting that adorned her walls. It was a painting of her Ada Lovelace doll. Dess clenched her teeth, more painful memories springing up.

She thought of Melissa's hand grasping her chin, the snake-like tendrils of her mind weaving into Dess's own, stripping every secret, searching every corner of her mind, every moment...

STOP! Dess scolded herself. She had forgiven Melissa for all of that, and she had to do it, because if she hadn't...

She mentally hit herself, and picked up her phone, turning it on. The display screen lit up, blinding her momentarily before she saw the pop-up box.

No new messages.

Dess made a strangled noise, one that was mangled with anger, frustration, sadness and loneliness. But what were you expecting, asked a voice inside her head. It's not like you're going to receive a text from any of them saying, Hi, how've you been? We've found all of the midnighters we can, and we'll be back in Bixby soon. Bye!

Yeah, right. Besides. What idiot would break huge news like that to someone via text?

Oh, Dess remembered sadly. Rex would.

Hey Dess, hate to say it like this, but I'm leaving. Tomorrow.

I have to find Melissa. I have to find her, and the others too, otherwise I will go insane. I can feel the darkling part of me getting stronger each day, and I know that Melissa is the only one who can stop that. Madeline is coming too. She says she needs to talk to Melissa as well.

Sorry,

-Rex.

Dess groaned, then hit her head on her desk, narrowly avoiding another one of her trig textbooks. She then stood abruptly, and she gazed out the window.

I need to get out of here, she thought, pulling on some shoes. She jumped out of the window and landed softly on her feet, ignoring the long, spear-like metal pole named groundbreaker polymathical fossilization. After fixing the time rip she didn't need it. It was then her mood hit rock bottom. Even the darklings had deserted her. Bummer.

Dess inhaled a deep breath of the cool night air that concealed a faint hint of rain. She started walking aimlessly in a random direction. Life had become so boring. Dess had first relished the thought of being able to do her own thing, away from the other Midnighters. She could invent things, maybe even meet other polymaths, people who could do the math, who could understand her. But now she knew that the thought of escaping Bixby was…unlikely. And without the darklings around her polymathical skills were pretty much useless. Except for acing Sanchez's trig tests. Her head was full of unanswered questions. Where did the darklings go? How many Midnighters had the others found, if any? How was Jess coping only living one hour a day? And, most importantly, where the hell was everybody?

Dess felt a tingle on her cheek, and looked up only to discover that it was starting to rain.

"Great," she murmured to herself. "Just what I need." She stopped walking and found herself standing at the edge of the Bixby River. She sighed, sat down, and within seconds found herself drenched under the sudden onslaught of rain. She picked up a rock from the riverbed and ran her fingers over it, the smooth, damp surface feeling like a cool marble against her skin. The heavy rain continued, throwing buckets of water from the sky, plastering Dess's hair to the back of her leather jacket. A lone drop fell onto her forehead, before rolling down her nose and splattering on the rock held lightly in her hands. The rock that was so smooth, so cool, so perfect.

Dess stood suddenly, and with an almighty burst of strength, threw the rock in an arc, sending it hurtling towards the lake. But the rock didn't get there, never broke the smooth sheet of water. Time had run out, the world around her was coated in blue.

The start of the secret hour sent a shudder through her, and when Dess looked up she saw thousands of tiny raindrops, suspended in the air, glittering like diamonds. She raised her left hand and touched one of the precious jewels with her finger, the raindrop wobbling, then unfreezing, then trickling down her arm and joining the rest of the rain that had saturated her. Her eyes then moved to the rock that she had thrown, hovering about two metres above the body of water. Why had she thrown such a beautiful rock? Dess had no idea, but there was a nagging thought at the back of her head. Maybe she had thrown it because it was whole and complete. Maybe she had thrown it out of envy.

Dess turned away from the suspended rock and the glittering diamonds. And started walking again, trying to remember the way she had come.

And at that time Desdemona Flood had never felt more alone.

A/N: Hi everyone! I hope you like my Midnighters oneshot, based around the awesomest charater in the books. As this has been my fist update in a while, I apoligise if my writing is a little terrible. I a currently editing a friends story, and as all my effort has gone into that I have none left for this story. So I also apoligise for any grammitcal errors. AND, just to let you know, as my computer is retarded it doesn't let me use spell check while writing in bold, and my M key is broken and I have to hit it REALLY hard to get it to work so there ight be soe words issing an M.

Anyway, please R&R, I would really appreciate it if you told e what I did well/terribly, if y writing is bad and so on. Oh, scrach that, PLEASE just review!

~Bubbles975~

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.